Two children, adult die in I-75 pileup in Detroit WITH VIDEO

A firefighter helps a woman out of a car as emergency personnel responds to a multi-vehicle accident on Interstate 75 in Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. Snow squalls and slippery roads led to a series of accidents that left at least three people dead and 20 injured on a mile-long stretch of southbound I-75. More than two dozen vehicles, including tractor-trailers, were involved in the pileups. (AP Photo/The Detroit News, David Coates)

A white cross can be seen in the foreground as a remembrance of another fatal accident, as crews respond to the morning crash today that reportedly left three people including two children, dead. (Photo by JACKIE HARRISON-MARTIN/For The Oakland Press)

DETROIT -- "Catastrophic."

That was the single word used repeatedly by witnesses describing a deadly multivehicle accident on I-75 as rush hour traffic was winding down Thursday morning.

As many as 50 vehicles were involved in the horrific pileup and about 160 others were stuck behind the wreckage that shut down southbound I-75 near Springwells at about 9:30 a.m.

The freeway reopened for the evening's rush hour about seven hours later.

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Watch a report on the fatal pileup on today's News at Noon.

As of 4:30 p.m., authorities confirmed that three people had died, two children and one adult, and at least 20 had been injured in the massive smashup.

Michigan State Police Lt. Michael Shaw said the two children who were killed are believed to be siblings, and their parents were hurt in the wreck. He said the boy died at the scene, and the girl died at a local hospital.

Shaw said the family is believed to be from Windsor, Ontario, across the Detroit River in Canada. None of the victims' names has been released.

In a surreal crash scene that left mangled cars and jackknifed semitrucks strewn along a mile stretch of the freeway just north of the Rouge River Bridge, motorists were in tears and in shock as rescue crews maneuvered around the motionless traffic to reach them.

The Jaws of Life had to be used to cut at least one trapped motorist out of a vehicle.

Shaw told members of the media that snow squalls and fog patches likely caused the chain-reaction crash.

Shaw said motorists could not see the vehicles ahead of them and the collisions just kept stacking up.

Southbound I-75 was shut down at Springwells.

On the northbound side of the freeway, lanes were closed at Schaefer Highway.

Many of the motorists who were not injured tried to assist one another until medical crews arrived.

Police officers moved from vehicle to vehicle to see who was trapped, injured or deceased.

Rescue sirens could be heard wailing in the distance from the north and southbound lanes of the freeway for more than an hour after the crashes ended.

Nearby residents stood atop an overpass and alongside the service drives on both sides of the freeway, staring in disbelief at the widespread wreckage below.

Rob Morosi, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Transportation, said there were snow squalls throughout the morning.

"According to reports we got from Michigan State Police, there were white-out conditions," Morosi said. "People were driving at normal speeds and ran into a curtain of fog and snow. I am not sure what occurred, but the result was a chain-reaction crash."

Morosi said the freeway and the Rouge River Bridge had been salted, but conditions became hazardous because of a combination of the quick-moving snow squalls, cold temperatures and strong winds.

He said the bridge ices up faster than solid stretches of freeway because of air circulating above and below the pavement.

With fresh snow on the pavement, he said, salt is not as effective when the temperatures dip below 20 degrees.

Morosi said the salt was not working and vision was limited.

"It was like the perfect storm," he said.

Reporter David Komer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.